Operation Enduring Pipeline

June 22, 2008

If asked, Canada would help the Afghan army defend a proposed $7.6-billion U.S.-backed natural
gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, to Pakistan and India.

We've heard about this pipeline before. U.S. Unocal and Bridas of Argentina were both bidding
on it with the Taliban when the Taliban pulled out of the negotiations just one month before
the U.S. invaded...

VTR wrote:

Last week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said the U.S.
government has a “fundamental strategic interest” in Afghanistan that goes
well beyond ensuring it is not used as a launching pad for terrorism, which
was the original justification for the UN-sanctioned NATO mission of which
Canada is a part.

That objective remains paramount, Mr. Boucher said, but he added that there
is a “historic opportunity … of having an open Afghanistan that can act as
a conduit for energy, ideas, people, trade, goods from Central Asia and
other places down to the Arabian Sea.”

Stephen Blank, a professor at the U.S. Army War College, in Carlisle
Barracks, Pa., said the U.S. government is particularly eager to provide an
alternative to the proposed $7.5-billion (U.S.) Iran-Pakistan-India
pipeline, which those three countries have agreed to pursue.

“From the U.S. viewpoint, the idea of blocking Iran is of paramount
significance,” he said.